ZS Associates

Monday
AM: Usually on Monday mornings, I like to settle in at my desk with a cup of coffee and review my to-do list and the deadlines for the week. This week I'm continuing to work on two market research projects: the first project is in the initial questionnaire design stage, while the results of the second will be presented next week. The first project is for an antibiotic drug in the pre-launch phase, and I am working with my team at ZS and at the client site to assess the current market landscape for launch. ZS market research projects typically last up to six months, with waves of physician interviewing occurring every two months. My second project is now in its fifth month, and we are tracking the effects of our competitors' Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) advertising campaign. This morning I focused on revising the questionnaire for the launch of my client's new antibiotic. About mid-morning, I called my contact at the client to clarify the launch date, and got feedback on the draft questionnaire.

PM: After incorporating the client's changes, I sent off draft 2 of the launch questionnaire to my project team, Norman and Ann, the consultant and manager on the project. As we outlined on Friday, they will review the questionnaire today and we will finalize it during our project team meeting tomorrow morning. After that, I switched gears and got back into the data analysis mode. During our last meeting, Tim and Amy, the manager and consultant on my defensive-tracking project, decided that we should study the correlation between physicians' views of current drugs in the market and their actual prescribing behavior. Using SPSS and Microsoft Excel^®, I looked at statistical significance in the data, and summarized the findings in Microsoft PowerPoint^®. This took the rest of the afternoon, but I found some very interesting distinctions among different segments of physicians.

Tuesday 
AM: Before my 9:30 am meeting to finalize the launch questionnaire, I reviewed the client's suggestions and my own notes on what we want to accomplish from this research. At 9:30, Norman and I headed into Ann's office to get to work. We started off by reviewing the overall objectives of the project, and made sure that we had everything covered in the questionnaire. We debated the merits of a few questions, and I explained some of the client's needs on specific questions. By the end of the morning, we had a final questionnaire to send to our data collection agency for pre-testing. After the meeting, I called our data collection agency and scheduled a time to review the final pre-test questionnaire with the interviewers for later this afternoon.

PM: After lunch, I headed over to the data collection agency. After the agency's project manager and 15 or so interviewers were gathered together, I reviewed the objectives of the project and ran through the questionnaire, question by question. I answered any of the interviewers' questions and pointed to areas in the questionnaire that physicians might have difficulty answering. While I was there, I reviewed the methodology and sampling of the study with the agency's project manager. I returned to ZS in time for a planning meeting about our annual barbeque. Each year, we host several events where we bring together ZS families and local underprivileged families. The barbeque is in a couple of weeks, and at this meeting, we delegated responsibilities. I am in charge of coordinating the games (water balloons?).

Wednesday
AM: This morning I continued working on analyzing data from the defensive-tracking study. Amy, Tim and I have a meeting scheduled this Friday to review the final packet for next week's meeting with the client. Each of us is working individually on different aspects of the research, although more often than not, I find myself working with both of them to get everything done. This morning was no exception; I spent the majority of the morning in Amy's office, with both of us working together to answer the "whys" of physicians' current prescribing preferences.

PM: At 1 pm, I listened in on the first pre-test with Norman. We took notes on possible areas to expand upon in the interview. Once the launch product pre-test ended we called Ann and reviewed our notes with her. Based on this, we decided to add a section to probe physicians' use of combination therapy. I made all of the necessary changes to the questionnaire, and sent the final version to the data collection agency. I then reviewed the changes with the agency's project manager and had her review the changes with the interviewers. I then ran to the recruiting school team leaders' meeting. As a second-year Business Associate, I will have more responsibilities in the recruiting process starting this September. At the meeting we discussed potential recruiting avenues, delegated responsibilities, and began brainstorming the cases for final round interviews. I will be in charge of organizing recruiting advertising at Princeton University.

Thursday 
AM: This morning the fielding of the launch questionnaire began. I listened in on a few more interviews just to make sure physicians were understanding the questionnaire. I spoke with the project manager at the data collection agency a few times to clarify a few of her questions about the coding of responses. After answering all of her questions I left the fielding of the survey to 100 physicians to the agency and went back to analyzing data for the other defensive-tracking DTC study. At 11:30 am I met the other BAs in the Princeton office for our monthly cross-office BA meeting. This month, one of the Evanston BAs presented a pain management therapeutic class summary, and another presented for the MAPS® continuing education series. These meetings allow us to share knowledge and experience across the offices.

PM: This afternoon Amy, Tim, and I had an impromptu team meeting. We analyzed our secondary data, and found interesting competitive advantages that our client's product has based on their DTC campaign. At 5:30, I packed up, changed into sweats, and went for a run around the complex with a few other ZSers. I know I got lapped at least once.

Friday
AM: I arrived at ZS in time for the monthly Friday Morning Mingle. I grabbed a bagel and chatted with Keisha, my Professional Development Manager, about her recent vacation and the possibility of getting on that new internal market research compilation project. Keisha assured me that she would bring my name up at the next staffing meeting. After mingling with my co-workers, Amy, Tim and I met in Tim's office to review the final packet. We wrote the Executive Summary outlining our findings, including those added in yesterday's meeting with Jenn. We highlighted the recommended strategy to shift resources from journal advertising to direct-to-consumer television ads.

PM: After a quick lunch with Amy to celebrate finalizing the packet, I returned to my office, and put the finishing touches on the defensive tracking packet. On Monday, we will fly to the client site for the meeting with the directors of sales and marketing. Towards the end of the day, I respond to an email from the Training Coordinator, confirming I will be available to teach "Basic Statistics" for the upcoming New Employee Orientation. Finally, I spent some time brainstorming ideas for a "Basic Stats" presentation before packing up and heading home for the weekend.